


Holiday Style

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Shopping, Developing Friendships, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28190949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: "Okay, so for the record," Ward said, as shoppers jostled them, "you're havingmehelp you pick out a gift foryourboyfriend. Me."If looks could kill, Colleen's glare should have pinned him, quivering, to the sidewalk. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and wished, for the thousandth time, that she'd just had something overnighted from Amazon. "Stop rubbing it in."
Relationships: Danny Rand/Colleen Wing, Ward Meachum & Colleen Wing
Comments: 13
Kudos: 53
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Holiday Style

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voleuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/gifts).



"Okay, so for the record," Ward said, as shoppers jostled them, "you're having _me_ help you pick out a gift for _your_ boyfriend. Me."

If looks could kill, Colleen's glare should have pinned him, quivering, to the sidewalk. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and wished, for the thousandth time, that she'd just had something overnighted from Amazon. "Stop rubbing it in."

"I'm just saying you might want to reconsider your life choices, that's all."

"You traveled with him for the better part of a year."

"So did you," Ward pointed out, "and you _live_ with him. Have I mentioned I haven't gotten him anything yet either?" 

"Yes," Colleen said. "At least half a dozen times. I'm starting to think this was a mistake."

"You think?"

Even if the company could have been better, at least there was a lot to look at. Fifth Avenue dazzled at the holidays, and Colleen couldn't even remember the last time she'd been up here during the Christmas season. Window displays, nativity scenes on top of hotel porticos, holly and tinsel, sprays of snowflakes and fountains of light twenty feet high on the building fronts— the avenue stretched in front of them as a seemingly endless corridor of glitter and lights.

"You know what else I'd like to know?" Ward said. "How in the hell you aren't freezing to death."

Colleen glanced sideways at him, huddled in a black wool coat with both his gloved hands wrapped around a festive cardboard cup of complimentary hot cocoa picked up in the last store. When they'd met outside Ward's building, it had been late afternoon, the sun glinting between the buildings with a clear sharp light. Now night had fallen, and brought with it bitter cold and a keening, icy wind. Trampled slush mixed with road salt was freezing back to ice along the edges of the sidewalk.

"I'm just not," Colleen said, burrowing her bare hands deeper into the pockets of her light jacket.

Ever since the Iron Fist had become part of her, she had generally tended to run hot. It explained why Danny always had felt like such a furnace to her when they were first dating, not to mention the way he could run around with his jacket unzipped over his bare chest in subfreezing weather.

Ward grunted, hunched up his shoulders against the wind, and inhaled the steam from his hot cocoa. "Oh hey," he said, freeing up a hand to point at a high-end chocolaterie across the street. "Chocolates. Expensive chocolates. Everyone loves chocolate."

"Danny's not really that into chocolate. I mean, not as a thing. He'd just as happily eat a bag of half-off Halloween candy from Walmart." 

"Why did you bring me along if you were just going to shoot down all of my ideas?"

"Because all of your ideas are ..." 

"Bullshit?" Ward said defensively. "That wasn't bullshit. That was a good idea, the chocolates thing." He crumpled the cocoa cup and dropped it in the nearest trash bin.

Colleen glanced at him again. The prickly sarcasm made it hard to tell, sometimes, how much of it was serious. She just assumed that he didn't like her, that it didn't really matter what she said; he didn't care what she thought, and he wasn't going to take her advice anyway.

But that had been a flash of hurt just now. Unwarranted hurt with a hint of petulance in it, especially considering that she was helping him as much as he was helping her, since it wasn't like he'd been doing that great at Christmas shopping on his own anyway. Still, looking back on it, she _had_ been shooting down his ideas all evening.

_Because they're bad ideas._

Except that wasn't entirely true. They were just ...

"Generic," she said.

"What?"

"Your ideas. They're generic. They're not really about Danny at all, they're more like ... they're like things you'd have your personal shopper buy for your clients for the holidays." 

Ward's gaze skipped away from her, and he looked like he wished that he'd hung on to the cocoa cup to give him something to do with his hands. Instead he shoved them in the pockets of his long and probably stupidly expensive wool coat.

"Oh my God," she said, as suspicion sank rapidly into certainty. "You've always had your personal shopper buy presents for you. You've never actually shopped for a gift for anyone in your life."

He looked like he was hovering somewhere around angry defensiveness, and then he smiled a little, just a quick sideways quirk of his mouth. "In my defense, have you _met_ my family?"

Colleen caught herself smiling back. It was disconcerting; they'd had a lot more moments like that since he and Danny had come back from Asia. Ward hadn't _changed,_ really. He was still a prickly, abrasive asshole. 

But there was something a little more relaxed about him, a little warmer and more human. She had been seeing more of him, since he and Danny hung around each other more. That was probably why she had asked him to help her shop for Danny. She would never have even thought of it a year ago. And that was something, wasn't it?

"Look, I'm not good at it either," she said. "I mean, exhibit number one: as you pointed out, I'm here with you, trying to find something for Danny on Christmas Eve. Questioning my life choices is not entirely uncalled for at this point."

Ward winced. "That was a little bit ..."

"True?"

He smiled slightly.

"Anyway," Colleen said. "I'm not the person who should be giving anyone advice on how to shop for presents. All I know about happy family Christmases comes from Hallmark specials. I mean, if you come right down to it, I was raised in a cult and didn't really have anyone to buy presents for anyway, until Danny came along. I used to give gift packages to the dojo kids at Christmas and hongbao at Chinese New Year, if I could afford it, but that's really more ..."

"Personal shopper stuff," Ward said, and that sideways smile turned up the corner of his mouth again. "Generic."

"Yeah," she said. "Basically."

They were running out of time. The stores were starting to close, the desperate herd of last-minute shoppers thinning out. They went into a bookstore, which was handing out wrapped chocolates at the door.

"We're closing in twenty minutes," the girl in the elf costume with the chocolate tray told them.

"Thank you, I figured," Colleen said wryly. She popped her chocolate into her mouth. "Ooh, caramel. Did you get something different?"

"Raspberry, I think. Some kind of fruit."

"Maybe chocolates for Danny isn't such a bad idea. I can eat them too."

"I think that place is closed now," Ward said.

"Dammit," she sighed.

"Silver Bells" was playing on the store PA, and the entire front half of the store was taken up with giant displays of gift books and other stocking-stuffer type gifts. Colleen picked up a small fake potted cactus, which at least Danny wouldn't inevitably kill, and then a book called _200 Meditations for Mindful Living._ He would either get a laugh out of it or decide to try every single one of them for the first 200 days of the new year. Hmmm. She put it back down.

"Hey, Colleen, it's a self-help book for people like us," Ward said, and flipped around the book he was holding to show her the cover: _Terrible Decisions in History._

She wrinkled her nose at him and flipped him off. Ward grinned unrepentantly and put it back.

Huh. They could actually play with each other like that. That was ... something, too. She kind of liked it.

Colleen spent far too much time contemplating a tea strainer shaped like a manatee, and then moved on to a pack of fidget toys. That, Danny might actually get some use out of.

She was just picking it up when Ward said abruptly, from some ways off, "Hey!"

Colleen looked around.

Ward had wandered away down the display racks, so he was now halfway across the store. Two guys with their wide shoulders straining at black leather jackets, both of whom positively screamed _muscle for hire,_ had just moved in on either side of him. One of them was holding a hand down out of sight, but from that and the stiff way Ward was holding himself, there was some kind of weapon in play, a knife or a gun.

Oh great, Colleen thought. She started moving their way, curling her hand into a fist, and could feel the tattoo warming under her jacket. Using the Iron Fist in here would really do a number on the store, but as far as Christmas presents she meant to bring back to Danny, his brother's corpse was not on her shopping list.

But Ward surprised her.

He ducked and lashed out with his foot in a clumsy but effective leg sweep. The weapon, which turned out to be a knife, swept over his head, and then Colleen kicked his other attacker into the romance novel aisle.

"Go!" she snapped, pushing Ward toward the door. There was no room to maneuver in here. They could fight more effectively outside, and with less risk of bystander damage too.

"Hey, you can't fight in here!" the girl in the elf costume yelled as they fled out the door.

They stumbled out onto the icy street. After the store's bright lights, the street was disorienting, pitch dark with headlights stabbing through the gloom and building fronts dazzling with a thousand pinpoint colors. Ward nearly faceplanted on an icy patch. Colleen caught him by the back of his coat.

A traffic light changed; there was a—not a gap in the traffic exactly, but something they could dive through. She yanked Ward forward and they plunged through the stream of taxis and cars, dodging around honking vehicles. Colleen kept hold of Ward's coat, ignored his yell of "What the hell!" and then they were stumbling onto the opposite sidewalk next to Central Park.

"Jesus!" Ward said. He wrenched his coat out of her grasp. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

"We're fine, aren't we?" She looked back. Their pursuers were on the opposite side of the street, seeking an opening. "Come on."

They started walking fast, headed back uptown. Colleen would have liked to blend with the pedestrian traffic, but there just wasn't much of it this late on Christmas Eve. She kept casting glances back. She couldn't see pursuers, but that didn't mean they weren't there. She pulled Ward through one of the entrances to the park.

"Oh, this is the _worst_ idea," Ward complained, but he went with her, dress shoes slipping and sliding on the snow and ice, which there was a lot more of inside the park. It was also much darker. Worryingly dark. Actually, he might be right that this was a bad idea. Plenty of opportunity to hide; also plenty of chances for their attackers to catch them alone.

As they walked quickly through the winding trails, Colleen catching Ward every time he started to slip, she said under her breath, "Good move back there, by the way."

"Yeah, you can thank Danny for that."

"Do you know who these guys are?" She had been trying to place them, but she just hadn't gotten a good enough look. Also, it wasn't like there were any shortage of goon types to choose from these days.

"Not sure. I think these might be some guys Danny and I pissed off in Bangkok. Uh, or maybe Lahore."

"When the heck were you in Pakistan? _Why_ were you in Pakistan? Never mind," she muttered. At least it was a refreshing change from being chased around the city by people _she_ had personally annoyed.

They were under the trees now, snow-covered branches drooping overhead. It was very dark back here. Colleen was starting to think that maybe she ought to have a plan.

"Do you have a—"

"Of course I do," she said shortly. 

Ward's car was parked back at his office building's parking garage. If they got back out on the street, they could call a rideshare, maybe call Misty and have her come pick them up. Actually, calling Misty didn't seem like a bad idea in general. She got out her phone and started pulling up her text history with Misty.

"Oh, hi, guys," Ward said, and backed into Colleen, bumping her. The phone skittered out of her hands and slipped into a snowdrift.

Colleen looked up with a sigh. There were at least a half-dozen guys closing on them from both directions on the path.

"All I wanted to do was buy a Christmas present for my boyfriend," she said wearily. "Ward, stay behind me and get low. This might get a little rough."

"Are you going to—of course you are," Ward said in a voice that sounded resigned, and dropped into a crouch.

Colleen went low too, but in her case it was part of the form. She brought down her tight-curled fist as light and heat spiraled down her arm from her core and erupted in a wave of energy.

Snow and ice cascaded in a spreading, circular wave around her. There was the usual reaction that she'd come to expect, which was a lot of yelling and impact noises and a rush of qi draining out of her, leaving her lightheaded.

She stood up slowly, swayed a moment, and then went and fished Ward out of a snowbank.

"I forgot how much I hate that," Ward said faintly.

"Come on. If I can run after draining my qi, you can run too."

They stumbled out onto the better-lit sidewalk on the opposite side of the park. Colleen had warmed somewhat on the run and was feeling a little better, but she looked back to find that Ward had fallen behind. He staggered out after her and stumbled to lean on the fenche. His coat was dripping slush; there was ice and snow driven into his hair, giving it a salt-and-pepper look.

Colleen caught her breath, centered herself a bit. "Take off your glove."

Ward coughed and ran a hand through his hair, showering snow everywhere. His black wool coat was peppered with it. "What?" he said through chattering teeth. "No."

"Ward, you're freezing. Take off your glove and hold out your hand."

He gave her a flat look.

"Trust me," she said, exasperated, and was oddly touched when he did as she'd asked. She took his icy fingers in her right hand, lacing her fingers through his.

"Uh, hey," Ward said, awkwardly trying to retrieve his hand.

"Hush," Colleen ordered. She tightened her grip as she poured energy into the Fist, letting it flow down her hand into his.

She felt it as heat, and apparently Ward did too, because he jerked a little and then his tight, pale face began to relax. Colleen let go before she could really drain herself. She was already tired down to her core; she didn't need to pass out on the sidewalk keeping him from keeling over with a case of hypothermia.

"Uh, wow," Ward said. He shook his hand. His teeth had stopped chattering and he looked a little less miserable. His hair, wet now instead of snowy, was hanging forward into his face. "That was ... really something."

"Thanks for the review," Colleen said. "Now please call us a rideshare, because my phone is still back there in the park somewhere."

*

She went back to retrieve it while Ward called a ride, because _hell no_ she wasn't letting Lahore ninjas or whateverthehell they were get their hands on her info. She was generally less worried about taking them on without Ward around to protect or explain to, although she saw no one, and she came out of the park brushing melting snow off her phone to find Ward holding an Uber for her.

They both piled damply into the backseat.

"I just punched in the dojo address," Ward said, trying hopelessly to comb his hair back with his fingers. "Ugh, there's road salt in my hair. That's fun. I figured I could have him drop me off at home after we drop you off."

"Ward, don't be stupid. You're soaked to the skin even after my, um, patch job. Stay the night. You can wear some of Danny's things. It's Christmas tomorrow anyway. You'd just be coming back."

"Oh," he said thoughtfully. "Yeah. I guess so." After a moment: "So, did you get anything for Danny, or—"

"When did I have time, exactly?"

"Yeah. Point." He squirmed beside her, twisting around to dig something out of his coat pocket, and then he held out his cupped hand. With no illumination in the backseat except the flickering lights of streetlights flowing past, she had no idea what he was trying to show her.

"Ward—"

"So I did, actually," he said in a bit of a rush. "I was looking at it when Guido tried to stick a knife between my ribs, and I guess I just stuck it in my pocket without really thinking about it."

"You shoplifted," Colleen said, trying to wrap her head around it. "You shoplifted from a Fifth Avenue bookstore."

"For the record," Ward said stiffly, "I'm going back as soon as they open after Christmas and paying for it."

"So what did you get?"

"Ah ..." He rolled the items—and it was items, plural—around in his hand, and put it back in his pocket. "Cat butt magnets," he said in a rush.

"You ... what. What did you just say?"

"Cat butt magnets," Ward said more distinctly. "For refrigerators. You know, with the little tails, and—"

Colleen stared at him in the darkness of the backseat. Just when she thought she was getting a handle on Ward, something like this happened. "Why on Earth did you think Danny would want magnets shaped like cat butts?"

"I don't know! I was desperate!" It came out in a rush. "I was looking for something that was the exact opposite of anything Dad would have bought, or my PA, and they were quirky and ridiculous, and I don't fucking _know,_ Colleen. Please give me a reason not to just throw them out the window of this car."

It was a good thing it was too dark in the backseat to see expressions well. Colleen had very nearly shoved her fist in her mouth to stop herself from laughing. "No, don't," she said when she could speak steadily again. "I think Danny will get a kick out of them, especially once we tell him the story. But honestly," she added, "we can do better than a pocket full of cat butt magnets. Have the guy let us out at the corner bodega."

The Uber dropped them off a block from the dojo, and they went into the corner convenience store, which was still open. Colleen grabbed a basket and raked it full of snacks, boxes of green tea, and a handful of candles from a sparsely stocked shelf.

"Really," Ward said, standing there watching her with his hands in his pockets. Under the store lights, his wet black hair looked greasy.

"Reach up and hand me down one of those 'I ❤️ NY' key chains, would you?"

"This is what you're giving him?"

"Says the man with a pocket full of stolen cat butt magnets."

"So can the snack bag be from both of us, or ..."

They walked up the street toward the dojo together, each with a bag loaded down with boxes of cheap snacks and tea. Colleen was starting to feel the energy drain from the Iron Fist, making her weave a little, bumping into Ward.

"Here," he muttered, and shoved something into her hand. It was a candy bar. "Quick sugar."

"I can definitely tell you've been hanging around Danny," she said, tearing into the wrapper with her teeth.

She had two chocolate bars and a box of Pocky in her by the time they got home. It was starting to snow a little, not big magical flakes but small damp flecks of melting sleet. Colleen let herself in with a sense of vast relief. The dojo turned apartment smelled like cinnamon and smoke.

"So there's good news and bad news," Danny called from the kitchen. "The good news is I made cookies, the bad—oh, hi, Ward! I thought you weren't coming 'til tomorrow."

"That was the plan, yeah." Ward dropped the bag he was carrying and took off his shoes without being prompted, a first as far as Colleen could remember. On the other hand, the fact that his shoes along with the rest of him were covered with slush and ice was probably a factor. "Is setting the place on fire part of your holiday decorating this year?"

"Nothing is on fire any more," Danny said. He was down on his knees in a T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, doing something with the oven and a screwdriver. There were deconstructed pieces of oven all around him. "There are cookies. Have one!"

Colleen circled around the kitchen island and dropped the bag in a discreet location on her way. "Is this where you get to the bad news?"

"I think a heating element burned out? Or something? I'm fixing it off the internet." Danny nudged his phone with his toe, propped against the cabinets on the floor. "I think I've about got—ow!" He jerked his hand back.

"For God's sake, you know there are people you can call to do that for you, right?" Ward called from the living room.

"I _like_ doing it myself." Danny tilted his head back to look up at Colleen and grinned up at her. There were smudges of soot or grease on his face. "Hi." The delighted smile changed to a frown. "What happened to you?"

Colleen ran a hand through her hair and realized that most of it had been pulled out of its ponytail. Also, she was wet; she just hadn't really noticed because she wasn't particular cold.

"Ninja attack," Ward called from the living room.

"They weren't ninjas," Colleen retorted.

"Oh," Danny said, "was it those gangsters from Karachi? Sorry, I meant to warn you those guys were hanging around. I tangled with them the other day."

"Are you kidding me?" Ward said. "Does this just happen to you often enough that you don't even bother to mention it?"

"Yes," Danny said. "Are you guys okay?"

"No thanks to you," Ward said loudly.

Colleen crouched down to pet Danny's hair. "Don't listen to him. We're fine. You smell like smoke and burnt grease."

"And you're wet," Danny said, leaning against her. "Are you guys really okay?"

"We're fine, just need dry clothes and something to eat." She plucked at her wet jacket. "Actually, I'm gonna go change. You guys can fix the oven or whatever." She grabbed a handful of cookies off a cooling rack and went to do that.

She came out to find the shower running—that was probably Ward—and the pieces of Danny's oven deconstruction project scraped out of the way so that it was possible to walk around in the kitchen without stepping on oven innards. Danny was covering a large bowl of cookie dough with plastic wrap.

"So yeah, I think Ward's right, we're gonna have to call somebody. It just popped and blew a breaker and then things caught on fire. And I bet there's nobody to do oven callout on Christmas Eve."

"Don't worry about it. The rest of the dough will keep just fine in the fridge and we can bake it up later." She slid an arm around his waist. "So, I have a confession to make."

"You didn't get me anything for Christmas."

"No, I did, I did," she said earnestly.

"Mmm, so you weren't out last-minute shopping for me or anything."

"Is it that obvious? _Really?"_

"I mean, the alternative is that you and Ward were hanging out voluntarily." Danny looked, briefly, hopeful at this.

Colleen couldn't help laughing. "Maybe a little of both."

It hadn't been terrible. Okay, so people had tried to kill them, but that happened on an almost daily basis. She hadn't really found herself wanting to kill _Ward,_ for a change.

"So I already called in a delivery order to that Szechuan place you like," Danny went on. "I was thinking we could put in _Miracle on 34th Street_ when Ward's out of the shower. Or maybe _It's a Wonderful Life._ You guys can pick."

And, okay, so Danny never quite stopped trying to recapture those nostalgia-tinted holiday Christmases from when he was a kid. She could have told him it wasn't coming back; she could have told him she'd never been that much of a Christmas person, hadn't grown up with it, didn't really know what to do with it when she had it.

But why _not_ enjoy it? Okay, so all she had to give him was a bunch of stuff from the bodega, but she knew Danny well enough to know that if she gave him a box full of snacks and boxes of tea and the couple of little pointless stocking-stuffer things she already had squirreled away in her underwear drawer, he would be delighted.

Also, the sheer entertainment value of watching Ward deal with classic Christmas movies was probably going to be more than worth any additional annoyance he might add to the evening.

Sometimes Christmas wasn't what you wanted it to be; it was what you made out of it.

"Sounds wonderful," she said, and meant it.


End file.
